Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Nobody Says "F*** You" Like Israel

As vile and racist as the regime is, you have to give them points for sheer chutzpah. Having denounced the Palestinians at the UN for not being serious about peace, Israeli PM Netanyahu has agreed two days later to build another 1,100 illegal buildings in occupied East Jerusalem. Of course, this has always been the strategy of Israel, ultimately emanating from the ultra-colonialist doctrine of Ze'ev Jabotinsky known as the Iron Wall. Basically, Israel will be so bad ass, so murderous and just plain crazy with a plentitude of American-bought weapons that the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Egyptians - the whole damn planet - will shut the hell up and do what Israel says. Unfortunately for the Palestinians what the state of Israel says is "fuck off and die", which isn't a very good place to start negotiations. And when Netanyahu says that negotiations must start from a perspective of "no preconditions", what he really means is that the only precondition is that the Palestinians will perform the above-noted-act of dispersal.

Unfortunately for Israel, the "we're-too-nuts-to-be-messed-with" line isn't carrying the same weight. Previously, they used the horrors of the Holocaust (which the Palestinians had nothing to do with) to justify their murderous, genocidal behaviour. Increasingly that doesn't hold much water - except with John Baird and the Harper Tories. Now there is no justification, just that they will kill whoever crosses them (and "crossing" them is broadly defined). But the Middle East is changing rapidly and Israel's actions have isolated it internationally, outside of the United States. With Turkey preparing a case against Israel's blockade of Gaza and threatening to escort aid ships with Turkish navy vessels and Egypt's post-revolution Prime Minister openly musing about the end of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, Israel is in danger of digging its hold deeper. Nor can it count on the power of the US to unilaterally discipline countries like Turkey, Egypt or even Saudi Arabia. The wave of revolutions have put everything on the table. Hell, the Saudis are even going to let women vote and run for office (well, insofar as anyone can vote or run for any office that has any power). And the rise of a dynamic and wealthy China, which doesn't demand the same fealty to every twist and turn of its foreign policy as the USA and Europe, has undermined America's power as a more attractive ally. The result is that while, in the past, Israel's "fuck you" was accepted, if grudgingly by everyone in the neighbourhood (bar, perhaps, Hezbollah), more and more of the world is replying back "no, fuck you." That will ultimately be to Israel's detriment.